Police, Customs, Political parties most perceived corrupt bodies in Ghana – Transparency International local unit
The Ghana Police Service, Customs Service and political parties are said to be institutions perceived to be most corrupt in the country, according to a survey released by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International.
The Police Service came out first with a score of 4.6 out of 5.0, followed by Customs, Political Parties and the Executive with 4.1, 3.9 and 3.7, respectively out of 14 public institutions, according to the survey titled “The Voice of the People 2011.”
The Judiciary came next with 3.6, followed by Parliament with a score of 3.3 with the media placing 12th with a score of 1.8 points.
Public/Civil Servants, Utility providers, Education, Health, the Private Sector, the Media, Religious bodies and CSOs/NGOs placed 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th respectively.
Out of the 2,096 respondents, GII says 1936 of them, constituting 92.4% reported that corruption was a serious problem in the country. However, it adds that 74 respondents, constituting a small portion of 3.5% responded that corruption was not a serious problem.
The GII says it is worth noting that the views of the general public on the Police Service, political parties, Parliament, the Judiciary and the media have not changed notably over the years.
The survey indicated that 37.8% of the respondents reported that corruption had “increased a lot” in the last three years while 19.9% of the respondents reported that it had “increased”. Thus, a total of 57.7% of the respondents felt that corruption had increased in the past three years.
The GII added that 20.4% of the respondents felt that corruption had remained the same over the last three years. Only 19% of the respondents reported that corruption had either “decreased a lot” or “decreased a little” while 2.7% had no opinion or refused to respond to the question.
By Ekow Quandzie
The Police is more corrupt than any institution in the country. They are only into extortion pf money from drivers, collecting onions, yams, sachets of water and any commodity from traders. Check if vehicles are road worthy. Some of them are SHAMELESS people.
If the police is first then they are really corrupt. Because there is much corruption in GES In GES every service the workers render goes with some money; processing of promotions, interview for promotions, awards etc. No weight, no processing. As at now, a group of teachers who completed UTTDBE(Untrained Teachers Diploma in Basic Education) 2 years ago are still not placed on their correct salary scale because they are not ready to pay bribe while their course mates who paid were placed on the scale as early as January 2011; Kwahu North District Education.